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SMTP Mail Send Problem

Question: We are sending over 50K of outgoing e-mails an hour. Today the queue fills and we can only handle about 20K an hour. At some point the mail server stops accepting mail.

Can you help me figure out what's going on? I want to configure and set up a system to support Microsoft Exchange sending over 50K e-mail per hour without the queue growing.

Answer: 50,000 messages per hour is quite a load. Without more details about your system, though, I can only make a couple of educated suggestions:

What kind of Internet connection do you have? Sending that kind of traffic over a 28.8Kbps modem link obviously won't work. Have you checked your usage to make sure that the bottleneck isn't that your connection is saturated?

How many Exchange servers are you using? If the bottleneck is that your Exchange server(s) can't keep up with that volume, you need faster or more servers.

There are a lot of variables involved, not the least of which is the size of the messages. If they're all small text messages, you'll have it easier than if they are graphics-loaded HTML files or if they contain large attachments.

I'd suggestion you first figure out where your bottleneck is (connection, server, or elsewhere) and then address how you can alleviate that problem (faster connection, faster server, additional servers, etc.).